IPW2100 w/ thinkpad and slack -current
 

ok, i have been following the instructions on how to install the ipw2100 to get my centrino running, and came into some problems...

i will refer to the
HOMEPAGE = http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/
INSTALL = http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/INSTALL
1. on HOMEPAGE it says you will need the Wireless Extentions Tools... but in the INSTALL page, it never tells you to install it.

2. on the INSTALL page it says
In 2.4.x, it can be found here:
Library Routines ->
Hotplug firmware loading support

In addition, you will need the Linux hotplug scripts dated later than
2003_10_07 (if you do not have /etc/hotplug/firmware.agent then you need to
upgrade).

what does that mean? and do i have to do anything?

3. on the INSTALL page it says
You will also need to have sysfs mounted. You can do this by adding an entry
to /etc/fstab similar to this:

none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0

does that mean put your file system for 'sysfs' because 'sysfs' isnt a valid filesystem.. for example im using reiserfs, would i put that there?

3. on the INSTALL page it says
You need to configure the device for your particular distribution. The steps
below will work on Red Hat, Fedora, and other similar distributions.

First, create a file in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ called ifcfg-eth1
(or eth2, etc. as appropriate). Place the following within it:

DEVICE=eth1
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
TYPE=Wireless

% modprobe ipw2100
% ifup eth1

how would i configure it for SLACK? and i dont have the 'ifup' command

4. when i boot up, i see this

IPW2100: Associated with 'linksys' at 11mbps on chanel 6.

but it doesnt work, the connection is never istablished, i need to plug in the ethernet cable and run the /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 to start up the internet



its sorta frustrating having new technology and not being able to use it. thanks for anyone who can help

From as far as I can tell, the driver is loaded, and the card is working. If the wifi card can associate itself with an access point (which seems to be happening; ESSID = linksys), then all you need to do is configure your IP address and all.

You should configure the gateway first. As super-user:
% route add default gw 192.168.0.1 eth1

Make sure to replace 192.168.0.1 with your router IP (if you're using that as the gateway), and either dhcpcd eth1 or assign the IP manually. In all these supplied examples, make sure to replace eth1 with whatever interface your wireless is using.

ifconfig eth1 192.168.0.10 netmask 255.255.255.0

That's probably it. Don't forget to turn it on (if it isn't already) ifconfig eth1 up. This is the same as doing ifup eth1, blah blah.

If you have a Windows partition (or any other OS that the wireless card is known to work), you can grab the router/ip information from there.

HTH.

I didn't install the tools and wireless driver works just fine.

sounds like you are running 2.4 kernel. I tried to compile the driver on Fedora Core 1 before, and I got the same errors, I never got the driver to work in 2.4 kernel. It compiles just fine in 2.6, sysfs is already mounted for me and firmware.agent is there.